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Saturday, 9 October 2010

Bearing in mind the style, that at B3D Studios we are looking for, the 1950's American rounded-shapes, I did some sketches to depict the retro futuristic Metropolis, although they are just thumbnails, they will help me to get the perspective right, tweak it and use it for my final concepts.

Friday, 8 October 2010

My first sketches were based on retro 1950s space-stations and spaceships, unfortunately all these sketches had these alien feel to it.

Looking for a more humanoid approach, I decided to look for more straight lines and blocky shapes.

Once again, these designs weren't able to fit to the animation, due to its style belonging to a era a bit later in time, 1960s and 1970s. After deciding with my colleagues the style we were looking for, the whole idea of having a more rounded-shape space station was in order. So I was back to the drawing room coming with more designs, this time taking in consideration the style we were going for I came up with some more designs.

Definitely, the rounded shapes made the space station a lot different. This last sketch is the chosen design to develop further and clean up to create the space station.

The astronaut is basically done, but as you can see, it's only the front.

So because I didn't have enough room to draw the side on the same page, I traced it on the edge of another page. I have been having trouble trying to draw the astronaut from the side, and at first, I couldn't work out where I was going wrong. In the end I figured out that because the lower half of the body is thin, I was also drawing the top half thin. This explained why the helmet always appeared squashed. I also couldn't decide how the padding around him, looked from the side.

I then decided to try and draw the back instead. (Left Picture) I then found a problem with the padding around the bottom. It just wouldn't be comfortable to sit on. I couldn't even decide whether it should point up (opposite to the front) or point down (same way to the front).Either way, I ditched the padding there and settled for a standard belt. (Middle Picture)I then had another go at a side view. Apart from it looking like a scribble, I think that the shape looks better than before.

This last picture, I accidentally drew, but thought it looked slightly Roman like. I then added a cape. I'm thinking that this sketch could be used as an idea for my character design project, where I'm mixing mythical with space opera. Who knows, but it will probably get discarded!

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The next few sketches are of the pod. These pods are what the astronauts escape in.

The way in which I went about drawing this was simple. I started with a circle/sphere. I then thought of all the requirements, assuming that it was to land safely on the ground.For starters it needs to escape quickly, but to also have some basic steering. So I added rockets around the top.I'm then thinking, if it's rocketing towards the earth, how do I slow it down for a safe landing. Stick a parachute in the center, or maybe several. Then some feet need to fold out just before landing.In the story board, I need the door in which they get out, to unfold from the front. So that was added, but then I'm thinking, how do they get into the pod in the first place, without going outside the space station. So what I've done is removed the central rocket, and replaced it with an air tight, circular door. The pod is clamped to the space station via this entrance.

I've even thought about what the inside might look like. There are four seats in the middle of the pod.

Anyway, I've probably done too much thinking really, especially as it's going to crash land in the trailer anyway!

What I've done here is drawn it a bit more accurately from the front.

Then also the top.

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The next thing I was thinking about were the cars of the future. I thought of having cars without wheels, but instead, tank tracks. Only not two tank tracks, but one tank track. As seen here.Now you may be thinking, how on earth does it steer. Well it doesn't. It only goes backwards or forwards, which might seem a bit silly, but it's not a silly as the next big Idea I had. What if all the roads in every city were in a grid. i.e. No curved roads. I thought that at every junction there would were four turn tables. As diagrammed above. Assuming the turn tables are going anti clockwise, turning left would be easy, but turning right would be a little more amusing. I then just thought of having one super large turn table. All you would do is drive on, then wait until you face the correct road, then drive off.I wasn't quite sure how serious the rest of the team were going to take this, but amazingly they all liked the idea.

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Next up is the Refraction Anomaly Detector (RAD).

Same as before, I looked at some hair dryers, and just experimented a bit with the designs.

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Lastly I'll finish up with some other sketches that were done, while we were all discussing our ideas.

This is the pretty much the final script for the trailer. What I mean by 'not formatted correctly' basically means that it hasn't yet been formatted to look like a proper script. I just posting it as it is so that the story is clear for us story boarders to use as reference over the weekend.

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Script

Text appears on screen - 50 years from now, in the year 2000!

Montage shots of futuristic cityscape. Then the camera pans up to the stars.

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Camera in space pans around to a space station (venture 01).A meteorite shower fly towards the space station.

Cuts to a shot where a meteor hits the space station. Crash... CUT

*music is big in nature, driving the shock of the scene into the audience*

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The scene changes to the chaos on the space station. The panic button is pressed, red alert lights flashing, alarms beeping and the astronauts scrambling for their space suits.

*Music changes to a more typical science fiction style composition, yet invoking fear behind its deliverance. Musical score is to be quietened down in this moment to build suspense.*

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The scene changes. Cameras aimed towards space pods. We see the space pods eject and the cameras track their movement.

Generals Voice over - "At 08 hundred hours, we received a call that the Venture01 Space Station has been evacuated. It is important that all pods are found, and crew debriefed immediately."

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Scene changes. Space pods are scattered across the sky over the City. we see one space pod come crashing towards the camera.*Sounds of aircraft nose diving*

Camera angle changes next to a space pod, which is flying in a jerky manner struggling to gain control. Space pod makes impact, scene goes black.

As this is said we see the scientist opening the Astronauts visor. There's nothing inside. The characters around the Astronaut all pull back with over acted horror. The screen pauses and more text comes up.

The scene changes to the lab. The astronaut lying on the table wakes up, in the background. The assistant, facing the camera, slowly begins to turn around (suspecting some movement). Cuts to black and you hear the assistant scream.

I have redesign three of my four characters The General, The Scientist and The Generic Soldier. I have also reposted my old design so you can see the differences between their old designs and their new ones.

Old General Design

New General Design

The new design of the general has him look more muscular but still has the aged war hero look. I even gave him a hat so he could look more like a General.

Old Scientist Design

New Scientist Design

I gave the Scientist a more flexible appearance compared to his old design which has him look stiff. I even remove his shoulder pads which to me makes him look more of a scientist.

Old Generic Soldier Design

New Generic Solder Design

﻿He looks the same as his old designs but with shoulder pads and his arms has textures on them which meant to show they are not metallic but a type of flexible material.

Tuesday, 5 October 2010

For Concept Art purposes, I decided to research the interior for labs, looking into the retro-future examples of labs, my idea is to understand the design used and any devices will be featured in there. Also, I was looking for architecture of the interior of the building.

Earlier, in this unit my group watched a 1970's episode of Doctor Who, what I enjoyed was to see the designs used inside the different buildings, although it doesn't belong to the retro-futuristic trend, it was interesting to see the desgins and maybe borrow some feature from them.

As a group we have discussed how this scared female design appears to be too "sexy" for such a role, she should come across cuter and more innocent. This would be a better design for the Scientists assistant.

As you may have seen, I blogged a page of designs for the Scientist. Im still working on them, but heres the designs so far. Im going for something simple, yet effective. The designs ive got so far are too basic for a quirky 1950's outlook on the futuristic take on the year 2000 so I think I will expand on my current designs and make something a bit more out there.

I then figured out after these concepts that, although these characters follow the typical shapes for a strong, dependant hero, why should I conform to the boundarys of the norm? Why cant I make my Scientist character a more lovable hero? After all, this is CG! I kinda got an idea in my head then kept at it until I got this strange, mad scientist idea which includes aspects of my previous designs. These include the hair, the colour schemes, the coat and the idea of him carrying a device. As were designing the characters in the style of "The Incredibles", I based this character on that of "Edna Mode".

Monday, 4 October 2010

Here are my character designs for our movie. I was for my own idea of what type of fashion would have. I thought they might wear a type of jumpsuit clothes with interesting patterns. I looked at some scuba suits to get some ideas, and I also looked at skirts from the 1950s to give the woman jumpsuits some variety and girlyness. I also Looked at some army clothes to give their clothes more of an army appearance since the army plays a role in our story.Then first two images are influence maps the first one is for the jumpsuit design and second one is for army clothes design.

The next set of image are for the character designs some of them have little information the the characters and how they work or their roles in the story.

Current Project

Notes

About B3D Studios

B3D stands for Budget 3D, an independent company that specialises in CGI animation.
Our Studio is based around Rochester, Kent.
Our skills ranges from Story Development and Concept Design to producing a Final Product.

For our latest project, we are working on a B-Movie.
Delivering the feeling of low budget films into CG animation by the setting, over acting, corny moments and the suspenseful feeling of the classic low budgets sci-fi from the 1950s.